Tuesday, September 16, 2014

rinse our toes

Wit to counterbalance my tiresome litany of complaints is sputtering. I feel like an insufferable bore reading what I write; how can a faithful reader not feel the same?

I tire of metaphors; I think I am getting too old for them, ancient relative to similes.

It's silly how constantly I'm guarding against cliches and cryptomnesia and big words, for that matter. It's hard work protecting one from oneself, from stodgy syntax, wonky jargon, and being impelled to use at least three items in a series; and then there's energy wasted on making sure that the of parts of speech are in agreement within the series.

Energy is mostly what's at stake here. The choosing of ones battles. [omit / cliche] Do I peck out another sentence when to do so automatically commits me to peck it out at least twice when you factor in my addiction to mid- sentence editing?

Energy is at premium these days. How much time spent just to avoid wasting it; and time is precious in much the same way. How much of it spent just to save energy? A lot, I know for that's for sure, in both cases.

As children, if life had not already made its terminal aspect known -- by disease or by dearth (add alliteration to my engrained habits) -- we could afford to be wastrels. As with change from a dollar let to fall from holey pockets. As with six half-eaten chicken nuggets swimming in twenty half-squeezed packs' worth of ketchup? [omit/ similes]. Of time and energy, we had a surfeit [omit / big words] [rearrange stodgy syntax].

You and I are not children anymore. We can't afford prodigality. Not with nuggets. Not with nickels.

Nor time. Nor energy.

When climbing into bed saps you and situating yourself beneath the sheets downright drains you and waking is the biggest bummer of all, it's time for a break. Sadly, a nap won't do because it creates a cycle of bummers -- three by my count, in agreement grammatically, as snug as bugs in rugs. [cliche]

Whew! Chronocaloric expenditure. [nonce jargon/ keep!]

9/ 14/ 14

John Gunther memorializes his son, Johnny, in the book Death Be Not Proud. Johnny died at seventeen of glioblastoma multiforme. (Upstart!) "One morning, [Johnny] said to the technician who took his blood count, "What's the point of going on with this? What does it all lead to."

I imagine this a common consideration of the terminally ill as it is to many of the terminally alive, I am certain. I confess to struggling with both malaises along the way.

But in Johnny’s case above ,he refers to a nasty diet that he’s been on and after discerning no results helpful results would sure like to know what that bother is. In my case, belowdecks[sic] [auto- corrected incorerectlty to icarly] [ I have considered rim the same thing about this journal and as a consequence, this blog. Do I abjure the thought of them? On the contrary ,keeping-up with them has become one of the highlights of my weeks; moreover, sharing them with gracious readers one is of my great pleasures, but . . .

Time and energy . . . tick tock, zip zap.

You might think thief is racing [opportunity for me that it may camy on ab breze foreordained for me as such a constant wroniter as [ me For example, no, it's not] in my thickening confusion, things are taking a turn for the Joycean.

9/ 15/ 14

So, this is where I am -- tired by just about everything i try to it do with anything approaching gusto, confused at every turn, breathing hoarsely at every stop. It may time to refocus my energy.

But first . . . Prolegomenon Reprised.

9/ 16/ 14

Not for pity. Not for sympathy. Not for applause. Yet not for nothing, I hope.

And now . . . revised focus Number One: Fantasy Football -- it's only week been two weeks and my teams are already looking abysmal.

So . . . join me on this my lacuna.

We can gather beyond the lazy sediment and rinse our toes in the freshening eddies.